2,500 Scientists Do Not Agree

EXAMINER PUBLICATIONS – JANUARY 16, 2008

By Rich Trzupek

For many people who are trying to make up their mind about global warming, the most troubling piece of evidence is this: the “fact” that the 2,500 scientists who make up the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) agree that human activity is causing climate change. The recent release of the Senate minority report casts doubt on consensus among the scientific community at large, by listing more 400 scientists from two dozen countries who disagree with IPCC’s conclusions. More damning still is a particularly informative article, authored by Tom Harris and John McLean, that demonstrates that there isn’t even consensus among the IPCC.

It is true that there are about 2,500 scientists in the IPCC as a whole. However, only about 600 of those scientists are part of Working Group I (WG I), the sub-committee that actually comments on the causes and severity of climate change. Of those 600, only 62 reviewed and commented on the critical chapter that attributes climate change to so-called “greenhouse gases” generated by human activity. According to Harris and McLean, 55 of those 62 had a vested interest (by organizational or research ties) in producing the “right” answer.

Having reached a very tenuous conclusion in the WG I report, the IPCC further skews the message in the only document that the majority of the media ever reads: the “Summary for Policymakers”, which is essentially a dumbed-down executive summary written for politicians, journalists and other non-technical types. This summary is not written by scientists, as it is essentially a PR document and is, therefore, expected to reinforce the “right” message even further.

To summarize, it is not the conclusion of 2,500 IPCC scientists that human activity causes global warming. That is a conclusion reached by a committee composed of a fraction of those scientists, of which only a smaller fraction actually reviewed and commented on that conclusion, before the message was diluted once again in a politically-motivated executive summary. This is homeopathic science, in which the truth is watered down so many times that by the time you get to the final product, facts are not detectable by conventional means.

As many scientists have noted (including your humble correspondent), a lack of consensus does not mean that one particular group is wrong or right. So, the fact that the IPCC “Summary for Policymakers” does not represent consensus is not, in itself, damning. The lack of consensus simply makes the “Summary for Policymakers” irrelevant, from a scientific point of view.

In order to evaluate the actual science, we must turn to an independent review of IPCC’s work. Arguably the best independent review comes via IPCC members themselves, in the form of the Independent Summary for Policymakers (ISPM), authored by IPCC member Dr. Ross McKitrick with nine co-authors. To date, it has been reviewed by 55 scientists, who agree with the reports conclusions and who “strongly agree” that it should be used to convey “the current state of climate science to policy makers and other general readers.”

The ISPM will be a challenging read for most non-technical types, but its 64 pages are damning, for anyone with the time and tenacity read and truly understand it. McKitrick et al are careful not to rule out any conclusions at this point in time and steps through the IPCC report and associated science without bias, as a good scientist should. However, at the end of the day, the unbiased reader is left with only one conclusion: while it is possible that human activity can contribute to global warming, it seems very unlikely that contribution is at all significant and, moreover, the means used to attribute global warming to human activity (computer modeling) is extremely unreliable.

Or, to quote the report: “The hypothesis that greenhouse gas emissions have produced or are capable of producing a significant warming of the Earth’s climate since the start of the industrial era is credible, and merits continued attention. However, the hypothesis cannot be proven by formal theoretical arguments, and the available data allow the hypothesis to be credibly disputed. Arguments for the hypothesis rely on computer simulations, which can never be decisive as supporting evidence.”

Does McKitrick dismiss greenhouse gases as a cause of global warming outright? Of course not. Nor should he. But his conclusion is a far cry from the sheer panic one finds in the Summary for Policymakers that Al Gore and his disciples quote so frequently. There is a big difference between “continued attention” to a hypothesis, and a mad rush to ration the world’s energy supply before we are swept away by a wall of water or devoured by homeless polar bears.

Dr. Vicent Gray, a fellow IPCC member put it succinctly. “The text of the IPCC report shows that this is decided by a guess from persons with a conflict of interest, not from a tested model,” Gray said.

So what if we can’t, in fact, do a damned thing to affect the climate of the planet? What if the changes are natural – beyond our control – as they have been in the past? In that case, do we really want to waste untold amounts of money and effort on a “solution” that is anything but, when we should be using our resources to prepare for a new – unstoppable – reality?

Global warming is often presented as a liberal-conservative issue. It’s not. It’s a science vs. propaganda issue and, despite what the Gorephiles preach, the real scientists have real doubts that mankind has much to do with the climate at all.

As a chemist and environmental scientist of very modest accomplishment, I am appalled at the way science has been perverted in the name of politics by the global warming crowd. There is joy in the scientific method, and in the doubt, the skepticism, the challenges and defense that ultimately, inevitably, leads to the truth – whatever that truth may be. It is a joy that I, like many students in the sciences, first experienced in college and it has stuck with me every since.

This abomination that a failed divinity student and his friends have foisted upon science disgusts me. It should disgust you. And I can not help but believe that, in time, Gore will be discredited once more and cosigned to the dust heap of history, where he belongs.